The FPA’s Great Decisions television series, which provided the initial impetus for all of the FPA blogs, has kicked off its 2010 season. They are all worth seeing, of course, but regular readers of this blog will be most interested in Episode 2: “Justified Force,” which looks at Kenya and East Africa in the wake of Kenya’s election violence. You can catch a sneak preview here.

Sean Patrick Murphy of the FPA’s Global Film Blog has posted another review of an African-themed film. His latest post looks at the 2007 film War Dance, which tells the story of internally displaced Ugandan children who make their way to a national music festival. He gives it two thumbs up.

At the FPA’s Global Engagement Blog James Ketterer has a great post on Robert Kennedy’s June 1966 trip to South Africa.

I once used Kennedy’s speech as a framing device for a journal article on teaching a course on race relations in the United States and South Africa.  (The piece was republished here.) I agree with Ketterer that Kennedy’s speech is telling and profound and inspiring and smart. It makes for a great entry-point to US-South African relations, but also to looking at the two countries within a comparative framework.

At the FPA’s Global Film Review Blog Sean Patrick Murphy reviews Invictus. I am working on an essay on the movie, the book on which it is based, and another book on South African sport and Apartheid which I will share with you as soon as it is published.

We are in the midst of a whole host of changes at the FPA’s blogging network. Much of our work will involve consolidating our many wonderful blogs into various categories. The Africa Blog will be part of a network of blogs in the “Africa and the Middle East” category, for which I will serve as the Senior Blogger and Editor. I will provide more updates in the weeks to come, but you can see a bit more about this ongoing transformation in an announcement at the Iran Blog, which will be part of my group.

At the FPA’s Global Film Review Blog my colleague Sean Patrick Murphy takes a look at God Grew Tired of Us, a 2007 documentary tracing three of Sudan’s “lost boys” from a refugee camp to the United States, where they have to adjust to an entirely different life while reconciling with their pasts. I concur with his assessment that God Grew Tired of Us is a powerful and affecting portrait of people dealing with the aftermath of the unimaginable.

My blogging colleague Lisa Gambone has been doing fine work over at the FPA War Crimes Blog where African affairs cross her transom quite regularly. Please check out her work.

All of my colleagues at the various Foreign Policy Association Blogs are doing wonderful work and I hope that you are reading all of them regularly even if your main interests lie in African affairs. (And I want to thank you if your interests lie elsewhere but you came over here anyway.)

In recent weeks Sean Murphy at the FPA Global Film Review Blog has written a number of posts, with video links (as you’ve probably noticed, I am fairly bells and whistles free here at the Africa Blog — something I am going to try to rectify) pertaining to Africa.  You should check out his work on The Battle of Algiers (1966), General Idi Amin Dada (1974), Ghosts of Rwanda (2004), The Devil Came on Horseback (2007), and Darfur Now* (2007).  Please check out these fine, concise reviews and some of the video footage provided.  

*I am wary of some of the shallow activism embodied in Darfur Now, which has its heart in the right place and time, but which, like so much about Darfur, tends to simplify it all into self-righteous can-do-ism, or what Texas in Africa calls “badvocacy.”

In an exciting change, the Foreign Policy Association is combining the South Africa Blog with this Africa Blog, which will be the new permanent site of FPA Africa commentary. I will continue to post on South African issues, but this transition will be better for me, as keeping both blogs has not always been easy,  it will be more convenient for readers, and will serve the FPA best. Basically everybody wins. Shortly those who attempt to access the South Africa Blog will be redirected here. Thanks for your continued support.